Page 190

When I had died.

I had bled on it.

I had attempted to push myself inside.

Oh.

“I was just a child,” I say sadly, then I realize I was the same age that my sister is now. The age she seems to be trapped in for all eternity, unless I undo the curse that’s been placed on her.

“What happened to my sister… it wasn’t just my mother’s tonic, was it?” I guess.

He sighs into my neck and kisses my pulse. “She’s not your sister, Liliana. She’s your spirit.”

My eyes widen. “What?” I ask as I place a hand to my chest.

Arwan follows my touch and curls his fingers around mine. “She’s inside you. She is you.” He drifts his lips over mine, and his breath is cool on my mouth as he speaks. “Are you going to accept your truth? Are you going to reunite with who you really are, or are you going to lock her away like Arwan has done to me?”

I blink at him, stunned to my core.

“This is because of when I died,” I whisper.

Not just that time when I was a child. But also because of what Edward had mentioned…

I died the day I was born.

He nods. “That’s what produced your split spirit. King Njord is entitled to any unbonded souls, even fragments that happen during a traumatic birth. That’s his contract with the Rinholds and other families like them.”

I swallow past the lump in my throat. “And when I died a second time, it stopped my spirit from aging.”

From growing.

He nods in confirmation. “Yes. You’re understanding now.”

“But I don’t understand,” I say as I squeeze my eyes shut and begin to tremble.

Arwan shushes me as he presses more kisses to my cheek, then his tongue flicks out to capture my tears. “If you accept who you are, little queen, then you can do anything.”

He kisses me. My back arches as I accept the invasion of his tongue. His hard body presses against mine as he holds me to him, seeming as if he wants to merge with me until we become one being.

Maybe that’s exactly what he intends.

“The others,” I breathe as he nips my skin.

“We have time,” he reassures me. “Look.”

He takes my chin and turns me to peer at the molten wall. It goes translucent for a moment, revealing Ze’ev and Godric frozen in time.

My body is between them, wilted.

But my eyes are locked on my position. The double vision it gives me is disconcerting.

“This tower is impenetrable. I built it that way. Now, you’re in control of it.” He presses a kiss to my mouth as he devours me with his gaze. “You can choose to claim it or destroy it. It’s entirely up to you, little queen.”

I shudder as his hand slides over my hip.

“I would never destroy it,” I vow.

This place may house all of Arwan’s pain, and mine, but it also holds who we really are.